65 comment not will not speculate about (what, in 61 and 64, is the object of this verb). Pirithous reserves judgement as to whether the horse took fright naturally, at a spark from the flint, or whether some supernatural agency drove him mad.

  hot as fire Thompson (207) compares a reference earlier in KT to Arcite’s ‘corser, starkinge as the fire’ (1502).

  66 Took toy was seized by a sudden mad impulse. Skeat quotes Philaster (Bowers, 1: 5.3.135–6): ‘What if a toy take um ’ith heeles now, and they runne all away?’

  this whatever it was, the spark or sulphur

  fell to abandoned himself to

  what whatever

  67 comes on end bucks and rears

  68 school-doing the techniques he had been taught in the riding school. In fact, the ability to rear up ‘on his hind hoofs’ (5.4.76), and to hold that position, was said to be the quality most admired in a horse, especially on occasions of ‘pompe or Triomphe’ (Topsell, 324–5). Like Arcite, whose superb horsemanship is about to be described, the horse is doing, with fatal results, exactly what he has been trained to do.

  69 of kind manage well-trained, as in the French manège. See OED sb. la.

  70 rowell spur

  72 jad’ry a pun on the pejorative use of ‘jade’ (horse) to mean ignoble and treacherous behaviour, as in ‘You always end with a jade’s trick’ (MA 1.1.144)

  73 it his seat on horseback. Disseat (72), also used in Mac (5.3.21), is here used both as a verb and also (implicitly) to indicate the noun to which it refers.

  bravely splendidly

  74 diff’ring plunges different violent movements

  75 Disroot Waith (Oxf1) notes that this is OED’s first example of the word.

  whence he grew i.e., from the saddle in which, because of his good horsemanship, he seemed to grow. The confusion between he and him in the next passage may reflect this centaur-like union of horse and rider.

  77 In Q this line appears in isolation, as the last half of a line, as if the compositors had been unable to read the first half. It is possible that the scribe or compositor failed to realize that the phrase was meant to replace ‘on his hind hooves’, which appears immediately above it in the previous line. (See Waller, ‘Printer’s’, 69). Bowers points out, however, that this assumption requires a further, unproven one: that the play was set up from an authorial manuscript in which this revision was made in the process of writing (as it would have to be, to connect with the following phrase). In fact, as Skeat says, ‘the half-line is rather effective’. See J. C. Maxwell (100) for the suggestion that short lines in ‘heroic narrative’ are imitations of the Virgilian half-line.

  79 His victor’s wreath the garland (see 5.3.130)

  81–2 his … load The full weight of the horse fell on his rider.

  83–4 such … approaches Cf. ‘Even as men wrack’d upon a sand, that look to be wash’d off the next tide’ (H5 4.1.97–8).

  86 alliance both friendship and blood relationship

  * * *

  79 victor’s] 1711; victors Qc; victoros Qu 85 SD carried] Dyce; not in Q

  91 world’s joy In KT, Arcite has a longer contemptus mundi speech, in which he asks despairingly, ‘What is this world? What asketh man to have?’ (2777).

  92 told counted, measured (perhaps with a pun on ‘tolled’)

  92–3 false … treacherous Lines 115–20 explain why Arcite sees himself as false but continues to deny Palamon’s accusations of treason (3.6.140–51).

  94 SD Weber’s suggestion (see t.n.) may be right, despite the wording here, but Arcite’s earlier ‘reach thy hand’ suggests that he is incapable of movement.

  ’Tis done i.e., the kiss, his life, and perhaps also their contention.

  95 seek (may it) seek

  98 This day the anniversary of this day to honour to honouring Arcite’s memory (Skeat)

  99 very here in this very place (cf. ‘now, very now’, Oth 1.1.88)

  101 Our thanks Dyce suggests your thanks. Perhaps this incomplete line was followed by some action corresponding to the command.

  104 arrose sprinkle, with a suggestion of holy water; the word still exists in the modern French aroser

  105 graced her altar granted her grace to the worshippers at her altar

  106 Our master Mars Perhaps he uses the royal we, or he may stress the pronoun, since, as Proudfoot points out, Mars, the patron of soldiers, is worshipped by most of the others on stage.

  * * *

  94 SD] Bawcutt; not in Q; kisses her. / Weber 95 SD] 1711; not in Q 101 Our] Q; Your Dyce 104 arrose] (arowze)

  107 vouched made good. Theseus seems to have learned what Palamon and Arcite were promised in 5.1.

  108 grace the success. Grace (by definition, something that cannot be earned or worked for) is thus associated with both Venus and Mars.

  109 this Arcite’s body

  111 loss … desire the loss of what we (also) desire (in this case, his friendship with Arcite)

  112 SD Some editors place this direction even earlier. Palamon’s lines will of course have a different effect if they are spoken as he stands by the woman he has won and calls after the friend he has lost. It would also be possible and effective to place Arcite’s funeral procession at the end of the play. It is likely, however, that Theseus would be obeyed at once, and the abruptness with which he dismisses Arcite parallels the haste with which he had earlier consigned Palamon and his knights to instant execution.

  112–13 Never … game Both Palamon and Arcite are presumably Fortune’s antagonists. In Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, Fortune, ‘ful of gyle’, plays chess with a knight and checkmates him by taking away his lady (618–82).

  114 the passage ‘(of arms), combat’ (Oxf1)

  115 equal impartial, in the sense of giving exactly the same to each

  116 Your … confessed Cf. the report of Iago’s and Roderigo’s offstage confessions in Oth 5.2.321–9.

  118 fancy love, possibly in the sense of something ‘engend’red in the eyes’ (MV 3.2.67)

  * * *

  112 SD] Oxf; not in Q

  123 your lovers the other knights: friends, but with the additional sense of ‘fellow-lovers’; one at least has been described as having ‘felt / Without doubt what he fights for’ (4.2.96–7)

  the stage of death Presumably the three other knights are still waiting on or beside the scaffold. As with 102–3, the phrase also encourages the metatheatrical awareness that often accompanies a play’s ending.

  124–8 A day … Palamon Cf. ‘With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage’ (Ham 1.2.12).

  124 A day or two Shaheen points out the echo of the apocryphal Ecclesiasticus, 38.17 (printed in all English Bibles from 1535 to 1826), which advises mourning, weeping and lamentation for ‘a day or two’, after which it is right to let oneself be comforted.

  126 in whose end at the conclusion of which

  131 charmers the gods, who work through ‘charms’ or supernatural powers

  135–6 leave … question refrain from disputing with beings too high to argue with. Cf. Jupiter’s warning (Cym 5.4.93–113) that mortals have no business questioning the gods.

  137 bear … time i.e., ‘sadly for the funeral, then happily for the wedding’ (Riv). Cf. ‘The weight of this sad time we must obey’ (KL 5.3.324). In Boccaccio and Chaucer the funeral of Arcite is described at length and the casting of valuable objects on his funeral pyre created something of a sensation in the 1566 performance of Palamon and Arcite (Elliott, 223). No such spectacle is called for here and, as Berggren notes, the ending seems deliberately abrupt and frustrating (14). Most recent productions have rounded it off in some way: a procession, a tableau, a repeat of the opening song, the reappearance of the Jailer’s Daughter.

  133 sorry, still] Weber (Mason); sorry still, Q

  EPILOGUE

  EPILOGUE The most likely speaker is a boy actor dressed as a woman (see List of Roles), since the childish phrase cruel fearful would give point to the comparison of the character with the boy (if not schoolboy) that he really is. His speech is constructed as a dialogue with the spectators. The original punctuation indicates (with colons) a number of long pauses where they are invited to react: after look upon ye in 4, the boy holds a pause while he looks at them; after show his face in 6, he pretends to be disappointed at the lack of response to his challenge; at 9, he dares anyone to hiss; at the end of 10 he invites a response, then cuts it off with an afterthought. As in the play itself, the act of choosing is deliberately deferred as long as possible, perhaps so that, when the audience is finally allowed to express its feelings, the applause will be all the greater. Such an epilogue would of course be unthinkable unless the authors had confidence both in the play and in the speaker. It is possible, as RP suggests, that the play’s unexpectedly sombre ending left its audience in stunned silence and that the function of the Epilogue was to restore a lighter mood.

  2 cannot say cannot speak for shyness

  3 cruel terribly

  stay a while wait (before you applaud or hiss) (Riv)

  5 it goes hard things are going badly

  8–9 hiss … market start a negative reaction which will ruin our chance of making a profit

  10 Have at let’s face

  12 cause cause to be bold (that is, confidence about our play). Cf. Rosalind’s equally apologetic epilogue to AYL.

  the tale ‘alluding to the title of the source’ (Leech), and also suggesting that ‘the play is not to be taken too seriously’ (Proudfoot)

  14 meant ye intended for you

  * * *

  EPILOGUE 0.1] Oxf subst.; not in Q

  15 end purpose

  17 Your old loves The actor, while thanking his audience, acknowledges his company’s many years of success.

  18 Gentlemen Though the audience would have included women, the actor implies that the loyal and understanding playgoers will be men. Blackfriars, as Gurr (165) points out, was ‘the playhouse situated closest to the Inns of Court’ and its repertory was traditionally ‘aimed precisely at law students and gallants’.

  * * *

  18 SD Exit.] Oxf subst.; not in Q

  1. John Fletcher, ‘Upon An Honest Man’s Fortune’

  1 You The poem is addressed to astrologers.

  3 lights possibly in the sense of OED sb. 6b: ‘Illumination or enlightenment’. But it may have a special astrological sense.

  14 houses the location of each star

  schemes (sceames in F) astrological charts

  26 Egypt associates astrologers first with the plagues that God inflicted on Egypt (Exodus, 7–12), then with Pharaoh’s magicians, also mentioned in the biblical passage, and the gypsy fortune-tellers, their descendants

  32 fall pun: prophecies that come true are said to fall right, but F argues that they are like drunks, constantly falling by accident

  35 Commands (command in F)

  light refers back to 3

  influence an astrological term for the effect of the heavens on human beings (see also 60 and 64)

  37 angels by contrast with the angel of 12

  49-54 Dyce prints this as a series of statements, with ‘who’ in apposition to ‘providence’ in 48, but the passage seems to be a series of rhetorical questions similar to those God asks in Job, 38–41.

  54 the tree That is, God himself is the tree of knowledge.

  55 his frame the thing that he framed (man)

  62 light to the guide showing the way to

  67 hand (band in F)

  69 curse (Seward: cause in F)

  74 fool’s fire will-o’-the-wisp (cf. the French feu follet)

  78 The first Eve, the first wife

  81-2 Knowledge and Truth submit to Time (whose daughter Truth proverbially is), but not to Age, which is personified, in bends, as a stooping figure. Cf. the attitude to age in TNK, esp. 1.2 and 2.2.

  86 allay alloy

  87-8 the deeper … will The more deeply God stamps us with suffering, the more we resemble his image.

  89 humorous An improper balance in the body of its moist humours, like choler and phlegm, was thought to be a source of illness; hence, sickness resembles a cloud full of rain.

  2. The portrait – frontispiece of John Fletcher, 1647

  1 Praesulis Renaissance classicizing Latin for ‘bishop’. Cf. JB’s reference to ‘thy father’s crosier’.

  2 biceps ‘double-headed’, a term often used by poets, deriving ultimately from Ovid (Met. 2.221)

  3 Cf. a different but possibly related conceit in JB: ‘a twin-horned crescent then, now one full moon’. Pyramida has the general sense of ‘monument’, but its shape is important to the conceit of the two peaks, like the two authors, fusing into one.

  4 chorum ‘Chorus’ is figurative for ‘play’; i.e., the parts of the dramas composed jointly cannot be distinguished. Cf. JB: ‘Each piece is wholly two yet never splits.’

  5 i.e., when Fletcher wrote on his own he doubled their joint output. Cf. JB: ‘that other strives to double which survives’. Possibly also a reference to Fletcher’s skill at complex plots, which is praised in other commendatory verses.

  7 Orbi the world – but, as Proudfoot notes, this is a punning reference to the Globe and the closing of the theatres

  Sibi The reflexive pronoun could refer to sales (wit; literally ‘salt’) or to Fletcher ‘himself’; Fletcher’s wit might be said to survive itself in the sense that the victory of Parliament was generally depicted in royalist propaganda as a triumph of dullness. The line may also refer to the closing of the theatres by Parliament in 1642.

  8 The point lies in the difference between facies (features) and vultus, which was taken to mean animi ingenium, perhaps ‘characteristics’. Art’s inability to capture this quality is also lamented in Ben Jonson’s verses on the engraving of Shakespeare in the 1623 Folio: ‘O, could he but haue drawne his wit / As well in brasse, as he hath hit / His face’.

  9 umbram Like ‘shadow’ in English, umbra could mean the picture itself, or Fletcher’s ghost, or the outline which the artist has been unable to trace.

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  William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen

 

 

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